Are you carefull about identity theft?

[DrGuile]

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/03/2...not_be_escaped/

By Thomas C Greene in Washington 23 Mar 2005 12:29
ID theft is inescapable

March 2005 might make history as the apex of identity theft disclosures. Privacy invasion outfit ChoicePoint, payroll handler PayMaxx, Bank of America, Lexis Nexis, several universities, and a large shoe retailer called DSW all lost control of sensitive data concerning millions of people.

Credit card and other banking details, names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth have fallen into the hands of potential identity thieves. The news could not be worse.

In March 2005 alone:

California State University at Chico notified 59,000 students, faculty, and staff that their details had been kept on a computer compromised by remote intruders. The haul included names, addresses and Social Security numbers.

Boston College notified 120,000 of its alumni after a computer containing their addresses and Social Security numbers were compromised by an intruder.

Shoe retailer DSW notified more than 100,000 customers of a remote break-in of the company's computerized database of 103 of the chain's 175 stores.

Privacy invasion outfit Seisint, a contributor to the MATRIX government dossier system, now owned by Reed Elsiver, confessed to 32,000 individuals that its Lexis Nexis databases had been compromised.

Privacy invasion outfit ChoicePoint confessed to selling the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of more than 150,000 people to criminals.

Bank of America confessed to losing backup tapes containing the financial records of 1.2 million federal employees.

Payroll outsourcer PayMaxx foolishly exposed more than 25,000 of its customers' payroll records on line.

Desktop computers belonging to government contractor Science Applications International Corp (SAIC) were stolen, exposing the details of stockholders past and present, many of them heavy hitters in the US government, such as former Defense Secretaries William Perry and Melvin Laird, former CIA Director John Deutch, former CIA Deputy Director Bobby Ray Inman, former Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq David Kay, and former chief counter-terror advisor General Wayne Downing.

Cell phone provider T-Mobile admitted that an intruder gained access to 400 of its customers' personal information.

George Mason University confessed that a remote intruder had gained access to the personal records of 30,000 students, faculty, and staff.
Par for the course

While this is nothing new, there is an important observation here that's worth emphasizing: none of these cases involved online transactions.

Many people innocently believe that they're safe from credit card fraud and identity theft in the brick and mortar world. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The vast majority of incidents can be traced to skimming, dumpster diving, and just plain stupidity among those who "own" our personal data.

Only a small fraction of such incidents result from online transactions. Every time you pay by check, use a debit or credit card, or fill out an application for insurance, housing, credit, employment, or education, you lose control of sensitive data.

In the US, a merchant is at liberty to do anything he pleases with the information, and this includes selling it to a third party without your knowledge or permission, or entering it into a computerized database, possibly with lax access controls, and possibly connected to the Internet.

Sadly, Congress's response has been to increase the penalties for identity theft, rather than to regulate access to, and use of, personal data by merchants, marketers, and data miners. Incredibly, the only person with absolutely no control over the collection, storage, security, and use of such sensitive information is its actual owner.

For this reason, it's literally impossible for an individual to prevent identity theft and credit card fraud, and it will remain impossible until Congress sees fit to regulate the privacy invasion industry. ®

[Nickatilynx]

I was so nearly phished the other day.

I got a "please reconfirm your ebay details over a purchase we believe was fraudulent"

I went and checked , first thing in the am , looked totally real was about to start filling it out when I notived the url was a number.

And I am a webmaster...I SHOULD no better.

[Steady]

It can happen to anybody...My sister, a federal employee, received a letter form Bank of America informing her of the problem. My sister is going to start running credit reports evey month.

Steady "Hook-Em-Horns"

[Steady]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Apr 13 2005, 07:06 AM
I was so nearly phished the other day.

I got a "please reconfirm your ebay details over a purchase we believe was fraudulent"

I went and checked , first thing in the am , looked totally real was about to start filling it out when I notived the url was a number.

And I am a webmaster...I SHOULD no better.

I got the same thing...I e-mailed them back and told them to call me to verify any personal information...I never got that phone call.

Steady

[DrGuile]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Apr 13 2005, 10:06 AM
I was so nearly phished the other day.

I got a "please reconfirm your ebay details over a purchase we believe was fraudulent"

I went and checked , first thing in the am , looked totally real was about to start filling it out when I notived the url was a number.

And I am a webmaster...I SHOULD no better.

But that's beside the point of this article.

Even you have never BEEN online, let alone bought anything, you could still have had all your information sold, stolen, improperly used, improperly disposed of...

No matter how careful you are, if the people you do business with arent, and legislation still allows them to have your info, you're proper fucked.

[Nickatilynx]

Also isn't the law forcing orgsainisations to notify if there data is comprimised relatively new?

If so I wonder what data was compromised prior to this law being in force

[Peaches]

When John died one of the first things his bank did was freeze his bank and credit card accounts and put a warning on his credit report. Apparently the newly dead are good targets since it might be a while before anyone notices.

I'm lucky - no one wants to be me financially!

[DrGuile]

Originally posted by Peaches@Apr 13 2005, 11:24 AM
When John died one of the first things his bank did was freeze his bank and credit card accounts and put a warning on his credit report. Apparently the newly dead are good targets since it might be a while before anyone notices.

That's depressing...

but eh, graverobber has been a profession almost as long as prostitute...

[Nickatilynx]

peaches ,

I wouldn't doubt it.

Its quite nasty...

I know in the old days the method used to get a bogus passport was as follows:

Scour a graveyard find a headstone of a departed infant ( chances are a 6mth old or younger never had a passport) of approximate age as the person requiring the passport.

Send away for a copy of that childs birthcertificate. (back then there was no correlation , between birth and death certs , I believe in many areas there still isn't)

Viola you are now a major part of the way to assuming that person's identity

a futher example of graverobbing , quite literally , Dr.Guile

[DrGuile]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Apr 13 2005, 11:33 AM
peaches ,

I wouldn't doubt it.

Its quite nasty...

I know in the old days the method used to get a bogus passport was as follows:

Scour a graveyard find a headstone of a departed infant ( chances are a 6mth old or younger never had a passport) of approximate age as the person requiring the passport.

Send away for a copy of that childs birthcertificate. (back then there was no correlation , between birth and death certs , I believe in many areas there still isn't)

Viola you are now a major part of the way to assuming that person's identity

a futher example of graverobbing , quite literally , Dr.Guile

uuuh... well it proves my point... but man, that's just nasty....

[Newton]

There are people stealing the rubbish and old bills from your dustbins, going on quite a bit at the moment. With those they can start to establish a credit line and then move onto passports, credit cards, loans and all sorts in your name.

Fire is the best solution for anything with your name, address, details on it that you intend to throw out, I like fires too lol

[Nickatilynx]

Originally posted by Newton@Apr 13 2005, 08:41 AM
There are people stealing the rubbish and old bills from your dustbins, going on quite a bit at the moment. With those they can start to establish a credit line and then move onto passports, credit cards, loans and all sorts in your name.

Fire is the best solution for anything with your name, address, details on it that you intend to throw out, I like fires too lol

Trev REALLY REALLY loves a fire ;-))))


Where as I just like to burn people ;-)))

[Newton]

Lol what is it with the English and pyromania?

[Trev]

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